Confession

Read more about the article The Lord Bless And Keep You

The Lord Bless And Keep You

The LORD bless you and keep you! The LORD let His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you! The LORD look upon you kindly and give you peace! (Nm 6: 24-26)

This was from the first reading for the first day of the new year, the feast of Mary Mother of God.  What a beautiful way to begin the new year, with the reminder that our loving God cares for us.  A blessing is an invitation to us from God and invitation requires a response. And how do we respond to this call?

“The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace.” How do we obtain this peace?  The first thing that comes to mind is making a good confession and starting the year renewed.  What are my faults? What have I done wrong? What good did I fail to do?  Then I ask forgiveness and accept the mercy God offers.  Yes I know some people may say, “I don’t have any sins to confess;” my response is simply, “oh, please tell me how you learned to walk on water because I haven’t managed it yet.”  The second thing that comes to mind is how do we live in peace with each other?  The fastest way to patience with and forgiveness of others is to pray for them.  When things seem especially difficult, a novena to Our Lady Undoer of Knots has never been known to fail.

“The Lord let His face shine upon you.” This reminds us to notice all the beauty created for us.  God communicates to each of us through the natural world – the softness of the gentle breeze, the brilliance of the orange and gold painted sky, the stillness of the forest, the roar of the ocean, the music of a child’s laugh, and the kindness of a stranger.  God’s love surrounds us and sustains us and when we want to see His Face, He awaits us in Eucharistic Adoration speaking words of love that only our souls can hear.

“The Lord bless you and keep you.”  God chose to keep His Son safe in the arms of His mother Mary.  Many non-Catholics have told me that Mary is a person like us in all things including sin, but where is that in scripture?  The greatest men of the Bible – Moses, David, Peter, and Paul have their sins as well as their successes told.  What do we know about the Blessed Virgin Mary? An angel greets Her with “Hail, full of grace.”  When Mary receives the message of the angel, she does not doubt as Zachariah did.  She does not try to use human intelligence to interpret the meaning as Abraham did (Abraham slept with his wife’s maid to try to fulfill the prophesy).  She inquires of the angel, Gabriel, exactly what She is supposed to do to cooperate in God’s plan.  She asks if God wants Her to give up Her vow of virginity and is willing to do whatever God wants of Her.  Once She understands, She gives Her assent.  Little more than a child, She is already a spiritual giant.  As mysteries unfold — the shepherds’ visit, the prophesy of Anna, the visit of the Magi, the finding of Jesus in the temple – She receives all these words and “Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.” (Lk 2:19) Her only concern is doing the Will of God and loving Her Son with all Her mind, all Her heart, and all Her strength.

On Her feast day as Mother of God, we celebrate the mystery that God has revealed to us.  God the Son has willingly given up His throne in Heaven to be with us and experience life as we experience it.  God the Father in His great love for His Son has chosen Mary’s womb as His throne at the Incarnation.  The angels’ songs are replaced by Mary’s lullabies.  Our Father loves His Son so much that He created a perfect, sinless human creature to give His Son a love more perfect than the angels’ adoration.  God the Father entrusted His Only Begotten Son into Her arms at His Nativity.  This is the same refuge Jesus gave us at the Cross when He said “Woman behold your son.” (John 19:26) The “handmaid of the Lord” (Lk 1:38) is always obedient to the will of God.  We can trust Her to keep us safe and  carry us toward Him.

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Read more about the article Time

Time

From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Mt 4:17)

I heard a story a long time ago that went like this:

The demons gathered together to discuss how they would steal souls.  One demon came forward and said, “I will tell people that we do not exist.”  The others thought this was a great idea.  Another came forward and said, “I will tell people that hell does not exist.”  The others applauded him for his ingenuity.  A third one came forward and said, “I will tell people there is plenty of time.”  With this all the demons jumped up ecstatic with his insights into the human psyche.

I remembered this story during a recent vacation I took with my family to see some national parks in Utah as well as the Grand Canyon.  As with many people, God speaks to me through nature.  When I gazed over the lookout at Bryce Canyon, I was amazed to see what weathering had done to the rocks and the beautiful and unique shapes I had never before seen.  I thought about how patient God is in His creation and much time it took to create this beauty.  Then I thought about my soul.  God had given me such a marvelous gift and the only gift I can give Him is to give back my soul in a beautiful condition.  Beauty takes time.  I don’t have thousands or millions of years, so I need to make every moment count.  How much do I pray every day?  How well do I live the Beatitudes?  How much honest self-reflection do I do before going to Confession?  There is definitely room for improvement.

God wasn’t finished speaking with me yet and gave me an experience for further reflection.  We planned a day trip to the Grand Canyon which is a little more than 2 ½ hours from St. George Utah.  We put our destination into Garmin (old school I know but my phone doesn’t do audible commands when it is plugged into the charger) and off we went.  We stopped for gas at Jacob’s Lake then continued on Highway 89 according to Garmin (and lack of signage on the Arizona highway).  We went up and over a two-lane mountain road with no shoulder, no guardrail, and hairpin turns.  I distinctly remember there were also no lights anywhere and wasn’t looking forward to the evening return trip.   Then we descended to the desert floor and proceeded across it, every minute getting hotter and hotter.  Finally my husband commented that we’d been on the road for 3 ½ hours and did I see any signs anywhere on the road?  Sure enough, we had missed Highway 67 way back before the mountain.  So back across the desert we went, up and over the mountain that I thankfully would not have to traverse at night, and finally after five hours of driving arrived at the Grand Canyon.

As an English major I appreciate a good metaphor and I think that’s why God picked this experience.  We can easily take the wrong road in life.  Sometimes we listen to the wrong people and sometimes we are so focused on where we want to go, convinced that we know better, that we miss the gentle urging of the Holy Spirit.  Of course God allows U-turns in life, which means we can eventually arrive where He wants us to end up, but the further we persist in going “our way” the less time we have to appreciate the beauty of the destination.  How much good do we neglect to do when we are doing things “our way”?  How many times do we fail to see God showing us how much He loves us?  How much heartache, worry, and general grumpiness can we avoid if we focus on doing His Will?

On the third breathtaking sunset God gave me on that trip, I stopped to say an Our Father.  No agenda or prayer list of wants, just an Our Father to tell Him I loved Him and to be fully present to Him in that moment.  As I immersed myself in Him, He responded by writing “I love you” in the sky.

If you look carefully you can see the "I," an upside down heart, and a "U."
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Read more about the article Gethsemane

Gethsemane

We all know the events that took place in the garden of Gethsemane: Jesus prayed, the apostles slept, Judas betrayed Him, and He was arrested.  But we really don’t know what happened in the garden.  Our understanding must begin with reflecting on what sin does to our souls.  Sin darkens the intellect, separates us from the love, truth, and beauty that is God, and strangles the breath from our souls.  The sorrow is that the longer we remain in sin, the more we become accustomed to the darkness and the lack of breath.  We can even go so far as being impressed with our own “wisdom,” lying to ourselves that we have our own light.  The deeper we go into sin, the more our souls gasp for air and the more we search in all the wrong places for relief and for light.

It was into this darkness that Our Lord descended when He took on the sins of the whole world — and this suffering truly goes beyond human understanding.  Eternally perfect, descending from Heaven into a body free from all stain of sin, living in perfect love and communion with the Father with every breath of His life, to suddenly have all of our sins heaped upon Him caused so much physical agony that He sweat blood.  Pause for a moment with that thought.  He sweat blood.  No other human being has ever suffered this much.

But even this was not the worst.  He actually felt everything we feel after we sin: guilt, shame, unjust anger when our sins are pointed out to us, sorrow, abject misery, desolation, and the worst of all – the emptiness that is felt by those who are so immersed in the deepest pits of sin they can no longer feel anything.  These are the ones so engulfed in evil that at the moment of death they look at the face of God with such hatred that they leap willingly into the fires of hell.  Yes, Jesus felt all these things – the pain beyond bearing and the reason why the angel rushed to His side.

Jesus loves us so much that He willingly endured all of this. Jesus’s depth of compassion for us poor sinners has no bounds.  He understands everything we are suffering and desires to free us from the personal hells we create for ourselves when we sin.  He delights in forgiving us, especially those in most need of His Mercy.

When we humble ourselves to ask for forgiveness, Jesus looks beyond the filth and stench we have heaped upon our souls.  He looks with compassion and mercy on souls writhing in agony.  He sees the heavy chains that have weighed us down for so long that we have long since stopped trying to move.  He sets us free.  As He promised, He never rejects a contrite heart.  He rejoices in forgiving us, setting us free from our chains, seeing our souls breathing freely and reflecting God’s light as the moon reflects the light of the sun.

This is the Jesus we encounter in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  Like the prodigal son approaching the forgiving father, Jesus opens His arms wide to receive us.  Do you desire to hear the words, “. . .through the ministry of the Church, may God grant you pardon and peace and I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” ?  Jesus’s desire to give us His mercy is even greater than our desire to receive it.  Let’s not keep Him waiting.

Jesus, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Continue ReadingGethsemane

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